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threat intel
The FBI Warned About Fake Permit Fees. The Harder Question Is Where the Money Goes. | Recorded Future
The FBI warned in March 2026 about a fast-growing scam where criminals impersonate city and county planning departments to collect fraudulent permit fees from property owners via wire transfer. Because victims authorize these payments themselves, behavioral fraud detection systems fail to flag them as suspicious, making the beneficiary accounts used by scammers the key signal for detection. Research into one active ring, called Diligent Planner, identified 53 verified mule accounts across 23 campaigns, with direct engagement of scam operations proving more effective than automated risk scoring.
Why it matters: Payment processors, banks, and financial institutions need to shift focus from sender behavior to beneficiary account intelligence to block these scams, since authorized customer payments bypass standard fraud controls; government impersonation losses nearly doubled year over year to roughly $798 million.
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